Menu

Home is where…, Part 1

Home is where…, Part 1
by Houston commercial photographer – Nicki Evans Photography

It seems that many people (who grow up in small towns) want to get away from their hometown as soon as they have a chance. Many of them say it’s because there’s nothing to do. They want to see “bigger and better” things.

I always had a tiny desire to live in loft apartment in a big city, most likely inspired by the TV show “Friends.” But my desire was never based on wanting to escape my small-town life, just the chance to do something new and different.

Deep down though, I’ve always been a hometown girl. I loved growing up in a small town. I didn’t think of it so much as a type of lifestyle; I was just having fun being a kid. In hindsight, I know that most of the things I got to do as a kid are not the norm for kids in a big city…or probably not even in most smaller towns today.

We used to ride bikes from one house to the next, stopping to jump on one friend’s trampoline or take a swim in another one’s pool. We cruised around town on go-carts, scrounging up change from couches and laundry baskets to buy a pint of ice cream or a can of Spaghetti-Os at Hill’s Grocery (just for an excuse to drive the go-cart to the store). We fished and had mud wars. We roller bladed while pretending to be Nancy Kerrigan and attempted roller hockey. Other than occasionally stopping to play Donkey Kong on the Super Nintendo, we were rarely indoors.

As we got older and began to drive, whole new realms of fun opened up, as we could now hook up to the boat and go wake boarding any time. After that, summers and weekends revolved completely around the water…lifeguarding at the wave pool some days, wake boarding in “The Channel” at Fort Anahuac Park or occasionally taking a day trip down to the beach.

I guess I’m getting a little sidetracked while reliving my childhood. The point of the story and this blog series is to showcase my hometown, Anahuac, and the county, Chambers, where I grew up and spent the majority of the first 2.5 decades of my life.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered that aside from being a place where you can have a pretty great childhood, there’s so much more to Chambers County…incredible people with stories to tell, lots of history, a variety of industries and beautiful scenery.

There are about 14 cities or communities that make up the county: Anahuac, Double Bayou, Oak Island, Smith Point, Monroe City, Stowell, Winnie, Wallisville, Hankamer, Cove, Beach City, Old River-Winfree, Mont Belvieu and parts of Baytown. The people in these communities are fisherman, farmers, ranchers and hunting guides. Some people raise gators or longhorns, some harvest oysters, some fly crop-dusters, some help conserve the marshes and wildlife within. And some do a little bit of it all.

For a few years (maybe more), I’ve had it in the back of my mind to do a photo series featuring all of those stories in Chambers County. This summer, I finally decided to stop thinking about it and just make it happen. The photo series, “Home is where…” will hopefully be one that continues for a long time, with blog posts as frequent as possible, depending on when I can fit these little adventures into my schedule. I hope to learn more about the place I call home and meet more people who can tell me their stories. And above all, I hope to tell these stories through my photographs.